Questioning Basalla’s question (yet again): The view from cognitive history

Abstract

In 1967, George Basalla posed the question: “How did modern science diffuse from Western Europe and find its place in the world?” Here, we consider this question particularized to India: “How did modern science find its place in India?” In answering his own question Basalla posited a 3-phase model–one that has been severely criticized by some prominent social historians and sociologists of modern Indian science. In this paper, we question Basalla’s question anew from the perspective of cognitive history, wherein the focus is on specific, individual scientific productions as knowledge-consuming/knowledge-generating creative phenomena. Drawing on Asiatic Society records on the work of British scientists in nineteenth century India and contributions made in the same period by five Indian pioneers of science, namely, Radhanath Sikdar, Yesudas Ramchandra, Mahendra Lal Sircar, Jagadis Chandra Bose and Prafulla Chandra Ray–each of whom is presented here as representing a distinct aspect of science–we argue that: (1) the biographical records of the British scientists in nineteenth century India does not resonate in important ways with phase I of the Basalla model; (2) with one notable exception, the work of the British scientists and that of the Indian protagonists ran on essentially parallel tracks; (3) the distinction between Basalla’s phase II ‘colonial scientist’ and phase III ‘independent scientist’ dissolves in the case of our Indian protagonists; and (4) most importantly, we answer the Basalla question by way of identifying specific and distinctive contributions made to the knowledge-consuming/knowledge-producing enterprises constituting creative science. In the final analysis, we suggest that the Basalla model played virtually no role in understanding or explaining the genesis of modern science in India as practiced by our protagonists.